Books

“Bad Boy Boogie is a punch to the heart. Picture James Lee Burke slammed into old-school Dennis Lehane and filtered through Bruce Springsteen, yet having a voice all its own.” –Scott Montgomery, MysteryPeople

When Jay Desmarteaux steps out of from prison after serving twenty-five years for murdering a vicious school bully, he tries to follow his convict mentor’s advice: the best revenge is living well. But questions gnaw at his gut: Where have his folks disappeared to? Why do old friends want him gone? And who wants him dead?

Teaming with his high school sweetheart turned legal Valkyrie, a hulking body shop bodybuilder, and a razor-wielding gentleman’s club house mother, Jay will unravel a tangle of deception all the way back to the bayous where he was born. With an iron-fisted police chief on his tail and a ruthless mob captain at his throat, he’ll need his wits, his fists, and his father’s trusty Vietnam war hatchet to hack his way through a toxic jungle of New Jersey corruption that makes the gator-filled swamps of home feel like the shallow end of the kiddie pool.

Praise for Bad Boy Boogie, first in the Jay Desmarteaux series:

“Thomas Pluck has with this novel launched himself into the rare category of … must-read novels … must re-read … must tell all and sundry about. It is that fine, that compelling. Made me relive all that a wonder novel yields. Just tremendous.”

“Thomas Pluck’s BAD BOY BOOGIE is a vivid dose of New Jersey noir with heart, soul and muscle.”

— Wallace Stroby, author of the Crissa Stone series

“My first Thomas Pluck novel won’t be my last. Bad Boy Boogie is a superb, taut, little thriller that hits all the right notes and sustains its central conceits to the very last page.”

– Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy crime novels

“Thomas Pluck is a crime writer to watch. Steeped in the genre’s grand tradition but with heart and bravado all his own, his writing is lean, smart and irresistibly compelling.”

–Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me and Queenpin

Thomas Pluck writes unflinching fiction with heart. He is the author of the action-adventure thriller Blade of Dishonor and over fifty published short stories. He also edited two charity anthologies to benefit PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children, Protectors, andProtectors 2: Heroes.

Wade and his best friend Red Collins have only lived eleven summers, but the one they’ll remember for the rest of their lives is when Blind Joe Death visited their holler, spinning tales of deadly haints and black dogs that steal souls in the night. Wade lost his father in the mines, and Red wishes his were dead. When the boys invite this strange hoodoo man into their lives they learn that the real monsters walk on two feet and sit beside us in church, and there is no darkness colder than what lurks within the human heart.

Bobby and Karen fit together like two sharp-toothed gears, suping up cars, racing them for pinks, and selling their rods to scrape a living. Then an old friend comes calling, and the jealous, brutal world conspires to tear them apart.

A centuries-old battle between ninja and samurai over a stolen sword… enter ‘Rage Cage’ Reeves!Taught to fight by his war hero grandfather, Reeves comes home to find Grandpa Butch embroiled in a centuries-old battle over a treasured Japanese sword. Together they team up with Tara the hot-rodding ambulance driver and a secretive member of a samurai warrior brotherhood to take on a powerful clan of ninja and yakuza bent on sparking a third world war.
Signed copies available locally and online at Watchung Booksellers.Available in trade paperback and e-book:

Denny Forrest is six foot five, three-fifty, and born with a dent in the side of his head that makes everyone he meets think he is just big and stupid. He can lift a truck off a trapped child… or twist a man’s head clean off with his bare hands. In these five tales of urban noir, the baddest men on the streets of Newark just won’t let Denny and his friends be. He may not know a lot, but he knows right from wrong… and how to make wrong right with his two big hands. 5 tales of brutal street justice.

The newest anthology to benefit PROTECT is 600+ pages of fiction from legends such as Harlan Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, David Morrell, Andrew Vachss, and Joe R. Lansdale; rising stars like Hilary Davidson, Laird Barron, and Joelle Charbonneau, and new fiction from emerging talents. Spanning all genres and including a personal essay from Alison Arngrim, this collection truly has something for everyone, and all proceeds go to PROTECT to fight online predators and fund the fight against the sexual, emotional, and physical abuse of children.

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Thomas Pluck is the author of Bad Boy Boogie, a Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller, and the Anthony finalist editor of Protectors 2: Heroes.

He has slung hash, trained in martial arts in America and Japan, worked on the docks, and even swept the Guggenheim museum (but not as part of a clever heist). He hails from Nutley, New Jersey, the birthplace of criminal masterminds Martha Stewart and Richard Blake, but has so far evaded capture. He remains a fugitive with his wife and their two cats.

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